Has anybody taken one or know how they work? I've heard of people taking a LOA in other districts. I really want to stay home with my kiddos but domt wamt to quit because I'm high seniority and live in the town I teach in. I can afford to take a year off. I'm afraid to ask HR because we are tiny (only 6 schools) and if I ask everyone will know.

I teach in a very large district. For maternity/family leave we can take 2 years with our position secured.

Anyone can take up to a 3 year leave as well for any reason. However, after the first year, you can be put into the job pool. So you can still return and have a position within the district, it just might not be at the school/grade level you were at when your leave began.

I took April-June off using FMLA, and then requested and was approved for a year leave of absence for the following school year. I ended up resigning after that as I was still needed at home. Funny enough, that position is open again and I interviewed for it Tuesday.

I'm not concerned about the actual position for a couple of reasons. I'm SDC and its a revolving door here. I've been doing it for 9 years but most teachers don't last that long in my district at it so I'm fairly confident in that. I got transferred to the middle school this year after 8 years at interemediate because my class got shut down and it seems they always need special Ed teachers at middle school (it's not that bad) The other reason is that I was thinking about transferring to gen Ed in lower elementary anyways.

when I had DS I took 5 months off and they counted that as a year of leave.

when I was pregnant with dd I had moved down to part time but kept my contract as full time so again counted as a year of leave. Then I had dd in September and took the year off. So 2 years of leave in a row. My district only allows 2 years of leave in a row before you have to come back or resign. I resigned

Feel free to PM me if you are interested....I'm in CA also. I teach in a pretty large school district and we are allowed unpaid loa for up to two years for the care of a minor child....it can be at any time, not limited to maternity. I took a year off when my first son was an infant due to medical issues he was having and got my same position back at the same school when I was done with my leave. It really depends on your district and contract though so you should definitely contact HR. Or, if you don't want to alert anyone to anything, just ask where you can view a copy of your full contract. It should be in there too. Our info on leaves can also be viewed on our HR page of our district website....do you have a district web page that you can go to??